Customer Reviews

Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (Modern War Studies)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

David M. Glantz, a military officer and expert on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, has written an excellent operational summary of the virtually unknown Operation "Mars" (the operation was such a disaster that the Soviets suppressed records of it until recently), the Soviet attempt to pinch off the German 9th Army in the Rhzev salient in November-December 1942. Even readers familiar with the Eastern Front will find their beliefs altered by his book. As Glantz clearly demonstrates, the well-known Operation Uranus counterattack at Stalingrad was actually a strategic deception for the main effort near Moscow. Soviet Marshal Zhukov wanted to destroy ArmeeGruppe Center but he ordered the Stalingrad attack to precede Operation Mars in order to divert German attention and reinforcements to the south. Unfortunately for him, the Germans did not become diverted and their defenses remained steady. Unlike the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German 9th Army was well entrenched and had powerful mobile reserves. Zhukov's attack was a spectacular failure despite larger forces being used there than in the Stalingrad counteroffensive. The Soviets failed primarily because they could not breach the German defenses quickly and the Germans (Field Marshal Model) did a superb job of shifting mobile reserves around to meet each crisis in turn. Severe winter weather actually degraded the Soviet artillery preparation (poor visibility limited observed fires), which undermined the initial breakthroughs. Amazingly, Zhukov continued to order frontal assaults for three weeks, even though the offensive was obviously failing to achieve its objectives in the first four days. Soviet losses in the three week offensive on this front totaled at least 100,000 killed, 235,00 wounded and about 1,800 tanks. German counterattacks cut off and eliminated three Soviet corps (one tank, one mechanized, and one rifle). After the Stalingrad operation succeeded and Operation Mars failed, Soviet historians erased all mention of Zhukov's attack and instead re-wrote history to make it appear that Stalingrad always was the main effort. The only deficiencies in this account that keep it from being outstanding are: (a) only marginal information is provided on the air campaign over the salient, (b) there is no detailed information on German forces defending the salient prior to Zhukov's attack (e.g. discussion of mobile reserves available, logistics, status of defenses, obstacles), and (c) no real assessment of Soviet units as to quality, equipment, training, prior experience, etc. Maps are decent in terms of quantity and quality although use of acronyms instead of map symbols clutters maps and makes them difficult to read (e.g. "6GCD" for 6th Guards Cavalry Division). However, if you want to learn something new and important about the Eastern Front, read this book.

I thought this book was David Glantz's best effort in retelling the story of one of the worst Soviet defeats in during the winter campaign of 1942-43. I think the Soviet defeat in Operation Star can equal this debacle that helped the Germans restored stability after their own disaster at Stalingrad. The book was well written and researched. The narrative was easy to follow and author gives good deal of insights on Zhukov's motivations behind his purpose. The book clearly revealed some fundamental weaknesses within the Soviet command while reflecting in some part, the strength of the Germans. Although I understand that the author wanted to give a the Soviet view on this matter, but if Zhukov lost the battle, Model won it and he probably deserves equal coverage. I do have one major complaint and that referred to the maps, while its clear enough, I thought the movements of units were not very clear and he should have used the standard NATO symbols to clarified the position instead of just writing a meshmash of lettering and numbers that designated units. It made a complex picture just more confusing when he didn't have to.

I also thought that the book was a textbook example of how the Germans could have fought the Soviets after Stalingrad. If the Germans decided against the Kursk campaign, battle like this would have been a good example of how the Germans could have outlast the Russians along the eastern front. Powerful mobile reserves, flexible command structure and capable leadership, post Stalingrad period would have been not a sure thing for the Soviets.

This is a book written for people who already got background education on the Eastern Front. Author don't waste a lot pages trying to explain what been going on since Barbarossa began and almost immediately plunge the reader into the conception and realization of Operation Mars and its relations.

ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an exhaustive and exacting study of one of the biggest and least-known land battles in history, the Battle for the Rzhev Salient, which took place west of Moscow over three weeks in late 1942. It was written by David M. Glantz, the director of the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, who also penned two other Red Army studies, WHEN TITANS CLASHED and STUMBLING COLOSSUS. Like Mr. Glantz's other works, it is notable primarily for its extensive use of Soviet and Russian-language sources, which with the fall of the Soviet Union are becoming increasingly available to Western historians. Thanks to his diligent research, this gigantic clash of Nazi and Soviet armies that produced 400,000 (mostly Soviet) casualties, for decades effectively covered up by postwar Communist historians and generally ignored by westerners obsessed with the simultaneously-occurring Battle of Stalingrad, has now been lifted out of historical obscurity.

Glantz's book primarily covers the period between November 25 and December 15, 1942, when the Red Army launched Operation Mars, a massive offensive on the northern-central sector of the Eastern Front to destroy two German armies poised in a 50 x 30 mile bulge that pointed threateningly towards Moscow. This so-called Rzhev Salient was viewed by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the ablest of the Soviet generals, as a perfect staging ground for an massive encirclement operation of the type that was being carried out at that moment at Stalingrad. The two operations, it was hoped, would annihilate not merely one German army, but two complete Army groups, and caused a frontwide collapse of Nazi forces in Russia. Zhukov made pain-staking preparations and was fully confident that the cold, dispirited and understrength German divisions in the Salient would quickly fall prey to his massive pincer attack. As Glantz shows us, he was wrong. Poor weather, unsuitable terrain and a tenacious German resistance turned the glorious offensive into an enormous bloodbath. One Soviet brigade after another was shattered, driven back or wiped out completely, only to be replaced by still more who met the same fate. German lines were bent but obstinately refused to break as the Nazi commander, Walther Model, hurled in his last reserves to stem the enemy tide. Long after it was clear that Mars would not achieve any of its objectives, the pathologically stubborn Zhukov continued the attack, as if, in Glantz's words, "to punish" his armies for their failure. The result was 100,000 Russian dead, 235,000 wounded and missing and an incalculable amount of equipment destroyed or captured, for gains that nowhere exceeded more than a few kilometers. It was not for nothing the Soviet soldier dubbed the area of the Salient "the Rzhev meat-grinder."

ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an important book on the Nazi-Soviet war, but it is clearly meant for hard-core fans of military history only. Glantz is a diligent, thorough, and methodical researcher, but unfortunately, his writing style has these same qualities. There is no attempt to edit, filter or streamline the vast amount of information which marches past on every densely-written page: we are treated to every brigade movement, every redeployment of a grenadier battalion, every argument between unit commanders over tactics and supplies. Stylistically, this reads like a military publication -- extremely heavy on tactical and logistical details, light on prose style. As a result, I often found myself in a Rzhev-like struggle to finish certain parts of the book. Many times I found myself longing for the stylistic skills of a John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David Irving or Alan Clark, and instead got fact-stuffed passages talking about how the 3rd Battalion of the 173rd Grenadier Regiment, 12th Panzer Division was replaced in the line by the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, Grossdeutschland Motorized Division. Obviously this type of detail is necessary here and there in any battle-book, but after a couple hundred pages it wears on the eyes.

Having said this, I think ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is still something of a triumph. Mr. Glantz has done nothing less than resurrect a forgotten battle and reconstruct it before our eyes down to its smallest details. He may not be the most asthetically pleasing historian around, but he brings the same type of grim determination to tell the story that Zhukov displayed trying to win the battle. Unlike Zhukov, however, he succeeds.

This is an interesting and detailed account of Operation Mars, the Soviet offensive around the Rzhev salient in the fall of 1942. This massive attack was contemporaneous with the counterattack further south that ultimately led to the encirclement of Stalingrad, and of similar scale in terms of men and material. According to Glantz, this operation was a colossal failure and was largely covered up by the Soviet government. I'm not sure that I entirely agree with this assessment, but little has been written about this operation, and this book nicely fills a longstanding void. It may well have been the Soviet plan for the Stalingrad offensive to be the secondary front, but they would not have succeeded there without the tremendous sacrifice by the Red Army around Rzhev.

This book has several strengths, and I generally recommend this book to any student of the Eastern front. The operation is explained at both the strategic and operational level, and there are detailed maps to show the positions of the larger units (regiment and above) relative to each other and geographic features. The text is divided into five sections. The strategic situation of both sides is outlined in the first, the initial attack in the second, the containment of the offensive by the Germans in the third, the subsequent futile Soviet attacks and ultimate failure in the fourth, and an epilogue and summary in the fifth. This was a rather complex, multi-directional attack to reduce a salient, and the text could easily have been a muddled mess. Glantz does a good job (through the text and the maps) of keeping everything straight so the reader can follow events in both time and space. One feature I thought was particularly useful was that some maps are zoomed in on small regions of the front. Other reviewers expressed a dislike for the maps and symbols, but I thought they were fine.

There are several serious drawbacks to this book that prevent me from giving it 5 stars. First, Glantz's position is VERY pro-Soviet (this is common throughout virtually everything he writes). He pulls no punches here. Historians are often looking for balance, and admittedly for fifty years much of the history about the Eastern front in the West came from German sources, so that our knowledge been skewed. Glantz certainly references many German sources and is clearly very knowledgable in this area, but he has done a great disservice by taking such an evident pro-Soviet position. There is a blatant lack of balance in this work. Second, Glantz often refers to the detailed inner thoughts of commanders. I find it hard to believe that such extensive knowledge of the personal thoughts and feeling of the participants is known. This seriously detracts from this work as history. I got the impression that Glantz is directly putting his own views and interpretations into the narrative by claiming such detailed knowledge of the participants.

I give this book four stars because it is a solid effort written about a virtually unknown operation on the Eastern front. I would not argue with anybody who gave this three stars though, this work does have some serious problems. I found this book easy to read, although I admit that I'm obsessed with this era. This is a dense book packed with information and may not be to everyone's taste. For any serious student of the era, this is really a must have, even given its limitations. There is a wealth of information here, much of it taken from Soviet sources, that is likely to be unknown to the most well read student. For the more casual reader of this epoch, I cannot recommend this book, and suggest that you spend your money elsewhere.

Glantz is certainly a prolific authority on the eastern front. He tries to avoid a common problem with military histories, listing so many divisions and battalions that one's eyes glaze over, and he makes this book somewhat more readable than his earlier one on the Kharkov offensive by extrapolating the thoughts of the commanders involved. My main gripe with the book is that the places mentioned in relation to specific battles usually do not appear on the accompanying maps, and his chronology sometimes fails to lead logically to the unfolding of the battle scenario. At one moment we are reading about the exploits of a particular Soviet battle group, and the next moment we find, much to our surprise, that they have been cut off by a German counteroffensive that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Still, Glantz shows the epic nature of the battles between the Soviets and the Nazis and makes us realize how much of World War II was fought almost beyond the range of our awareness.

The book is a little hard going at first, but it rewards perseverance. It becomes engrossing after the first few dozen pages, and the author's research is absolutely astounding, when one considers that very little (if anything at all) is actually written about this war in other more popular works concerning the eastern front during WW2. Information about the battle that was fought at exactly the same time as this one, namely the battle of Stalingrad is easy to obtain. If however, the enquiring reader wishes to know what was happening in other sectors of the eastern front during the Stalingrad battle, then this is surely the book to read. The book is very detailed, but lots of maps are provided for assistance. Well recommended for the more serious WW2 enthusiast.

The author has adressed the history of operation "Mars" several times previously and the scope of the operation has alllways shrunken a bit: first, in "When Titans clashed", russian lossen were put at more than 700.000 from a total of 1,400.000.000 involved; then, in an article on the same subject, he gives german total losses as about 40.000 and the russian losses as at least ten times as high. Now, in the book german total losses (as are correlation of forces) are not adressed and the russian losses calculated as more than 300.000 out of about 800.000 involved, leaving the reader marveling for reasons for such changes. The cited german estimate of total russian personnel losses in this book is at 200.000 but calculating from a note (in Appendix E) in reply to Krivosheev we may infere that the germans have put the russian losses to near 500.000 (whithout identifying a source for this). I found this a little bit vexing. The old format to present numbers and losses such as used in "From the Don to the Dnper" or in Kursk is much more preferable. Compared with the Rhez-Sychenska operation in July/August 1942 with about 23.000 german and at least (because Krivosheev's numbers are usually on the lower side) 180.000 russian losses of all categories "Mars" seemed to have been somewaht more costly to the germans than to the russians.

The style of the book, especially it's parts on intentions and plans is novelistic, subjective and conjective but fascinating - the author was playing here with new forms to present unprovable may-be's. I see forward to further books on forgotten battles in the german-russian war by the same author.

For those who forget the past are condemned to relive it. The supression of knowledge of Operation MARS as military history because of its failure can be dangerous. Failure can be just as instructive as success if not more so. With the addition of this book, we can place the Eastern Front in the broader context that has been missing. This book allows an examination beyond the dogmatic explanation from Soviet sources.

I'd say that this is the definitive work on the subject.. The only problem that I had with it was the maps. The labels are very small (black on dark grey) & one could go blind trying to find locations mentioned in the book.

Another excellent book from a great historian of the Red Army. This book really brings into focus the weaknesses of the Soviet forces, primarily the lack of flexibility in its commanders. The asset-curse of Zhukov's stubborness is shown as he continues to send men into the battle though the chance of breakthrough was quite obviously lost. This campaign is often overshadowed by the spectacularly successful Stalingrad offensive in the south and was brushed under the rug by the Soviets as it was a sound defeat.